Be a WSDP app

In a previous post I referenced the "Willie Sutton Data Principle" (WSDP). Willie Sutton (reputedly) replied, "That's where the money is" when asked, "Why do you rob banks?"
The WSDP is about data capture - the idea being data capture is most useful if it happens in the natural course of doing something - not if you have to go an extra step. Of course there are exceptions, but there are so many sites/applications where to capture the data you simply have to work too hard to make it worth your while. For me a couple of examples include untappd a terrific idea for sharing beer drinking experiences. However the work required to enter the beers far outweighs any benefit that I derive. Now I drink a lot of beer, and I try many different brews, but somehow crowdsourcing beer drinking is too much work. Similarly, I would have to be a fanatic to enter the foods/drinks that I consume into my Jawbone Up. I love the product for showing exercise and sleep habits (that's passive collection), but as soon as I have to do work to collect the data, I am simply not motivated enough.
Contrast with Google Maps - looking at "real time" traffic. That's a great WSDP app. The data are captured passively as we move around, and then made usable to other drivers. I can contribute to the crowd source - but do it without having to work at it.
Moral of the story - make your apps worth entering data - or make the data entry invisible to the user. Be a WSDP app where possible.

TV advertising and idempotence

Reading this and reflecting on my own experience started to make me think about the nature of commercials on TV.
In our house we rarely watch live TV - mostly delayed or semi-live. Semi-live is the term used to describe starting after the show/event has started and being able to skip the commercials. Delayed I am taking to mean some time after the show/event is over.
There are several programs (e.g. repeats, highlights, old movies) that are in a sense timeless. I might go back days or weeks after the recording to watch. And therein lies the rub.
Idempotence is a mathematical term that roughly means "when you invoke a function you get the same answer every time you invoke it." If we think of language as like invoking functions, there are words that definitely cause us difficulties. Tomorrow for example gives a different answer every day. Next Wednesday gives a different answer every week....
So when we are looking at delayed TV, advertisements that crop up saying, "watch xxx tomorrow" become meaningless when I am watching a delayed program after the presentation of xxx.
To make advertising more meaningful, a couple of things could help - at least help we delayed TV crowd.

1. Insert time relevant advertising at the moment of watching the program
2. If it isn't possible to insert advertising (contracts, agreements, technology, cost or whatever), then make sure that the advertisements represent time in an idempotent way. Give Date/Time in absolute terms and not just in relative terms for example.

Right now, one of the main reasons to watch delayed is to avoid the advertisements. That does the job well for me. But f the advertisements were harder to avoid and more time of viewing relevant, then maybe they would reach me better.

My hate/hate relationship with Amazon

My first encounter with Amazon left a very poor taste. I had bought a friend a book for his birthday. I wanted to send it anonymously to give him a bit of an opportunity to do some detective work. So I went to the fledgling amazon.com and ordered the book. I checked the box that allowed me not to include any information about the sender, gave my credit card number and sat back awaiting a fun game as my friend tried to figure out where it came from. It didn't take long! Amazon indeed did not include any information about me inside the package. They did however include my name on the return address on the exterior shipping label. That's just plain wrong - especially when they say they will never share details, etc.

Fast forwarding to today. I had been researching a specific Thai cookery book (by Chef McDang with whom I was at school in England, but that is another story). I have a copy, but needed some further information about the book - again for a friend. I didn't log in to Amazon while doing this search. However within a few days of doing that search, I am now inundated by Amazon with suggestions for Thai cook books. Impressive for sure. But not exactly what I had in mind.

There are actually two things in there that I don't like. First they were reasoning from the particular to the general back to the particular. "If you like one Thai recipe book, you probably like Thai recipes/cooking and so you will like these." Second, even though I thought I had wiped caches, etc. Amazon was still able to determine who I was when making the original request and do something obnoxious with that data.

Creepy isn't it?

The Dow Jones average and history

This posting was prompted by seeing the Dow Jones Industrial Average change out 3 of its component stocks. Gone are Alcoa, Bank of America, and Hewlett Packard. In are Nike, Visa, and Goldman Sachs. This change was announced on September 10th, 2013 for effect on September 23, 2013. It isn't the first time, nor will it be the last, that the DOW will make adjustments. But that does leave me with a rather uncomfortable question. How valid is it to compare the DOW of September 23, 2013 with the Dow of September 22nd. 2013? Had Alcoa, BofA and H-P still been in the index on September 23, then the DOW would have one value, but since they aren't it would have another.

The way the "magic" occurs is that the DOW is a price weighted index. The idea is that a shift of $1 in the price of any stock will cause the index to shift a certain number of points. It doesn't matter which stock it is.To prevent any discontinuities, structural activities (stock splits, acquisitions, divestitures) and additions/removals to the index cause a weighting factor to change. From March 2013 to now the weighting factor has been that a $1 change in any stock price will move the index 7.7 points. From September 23, 2013 onwards a $1 change in a stock price will cause a movement of 6.5 points

So as we compare DOW index values over the years, we at least need to be aware that it isn't a single seamless whole with the same stocks at the same weighting all the time.

As we look at index data in our own businesses, we also need to realize that the way an index is calculated can affect the perception of the underlying reality that has been abstracted by the index.